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Donald Trump Changes His Stance on Abortion Again for the 5th or 6th Time

Yesterday in an interview with Sean Hannity, Trump was asked early on about his recent stances on abortion. Hannity asked about his statements earlier this week with Chris Matthews where Trump said that abortion should be illegal and that women who get abortions should “be punished.”

Last night he had a completely different stance. “You know I’m pro-life, okay, with the exceptions, but I am pro-life…It was a hypothetical question, you give a hypothetical answer.” Trump said last week that abortion should be illegal, period, with no talk of any of the usual exceptions for rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother.

Donald Trump has held just about every conceivable position on the abortion issue. The Washington Post released an article on Sunday with an amazing timeline of Trump’s different stances on abortion. Below is a summation of that timeline:

October 1999: In an interview on Meet The Press, Donald Trump describes himself as “very pro-choice,” even advocating for third trimester partial birth abortions.

1999-2011: Trump reverses his stance on abortion, claiming that he became pro-life after hearing anecdotes about women deciding not to have abortions.

June 2015: In an interview with Jake Tapper, Trump says he’s pro-choice, realizes his mistake, and quickly corrects himself to “pro-life.”

March 30, 2016 2:30pm: The interview with Chris Matthews where Trump declares that all abortion should be illegal, with no mention of exceptions, then goes on to say that if it were made illegal then the woman who have abortions should be punished. There was no mention of the fathers or doctors performing the abortions.

March 30, 2016 3:30pm: One hour after making those statements the Trump campaign backpedals and tweets the he is “pro-life with exceptions, which I have outlined numerous times.”

March 30, 2016 5:00pm: In a more formal statement two and a half hours later, Trump changes his position again, saying that if abortion were made illegal then the doctors would be targeted for prosecution, not the women involved.

April 1, 2016 6:30pm: Trump changes tack again, saying that the abortion laws are in place, and they will remain. He would prefer that the states choose their own stance on abortion.

April 1, 2016 9:00pm: That evening in a statement from the campaign, Trump says that he will uphold the law on abortion, but appoint judges that will overturn the law.